reading alice.

Live life through a screen,

In between four rooms, boxes, places.

Touch the world softly, twenty paces.

Back and forth, and dream of and

learn about life through dappled drunk days:

reading about alice in wonderland,

wondering why the world won’t fade away,

into this bright, merry band

of misfits and introverts and mad hatters.

dream of days where I finally matter.

Live without feeling quite so alone,

(i hold a hand, but turns out it’s my own).

But, I’m scared, I’m scared

(oh mama, I’m so scared)

Hold me now, closer, tighter, stronger

Hold on longer and longer

So that I don’t fall apart like rain

Shatter from the dancing clouds,

Won’t wash down the drain

Yelling (“please don’t let go!”) loud.

So, Alice, Alice, will you take my hand?

Say you will live this life with me if you can,

the roses and violets and posies all understand,

Things are always better in wonderland. 

Where the red queen says, "run in one place!

Faster, faster now, to get away!"

Things don’t always have to stay the same

We can thunder in a different way.

shaking hands

you speak, in a room
full of no one and every one
and i can see, in truth that looms
all the shaking you cover up
pressed under skin like a hiccup

i can see you now, you tremble,
hear the jolts of your heart ignite
feel your words, in the air, fumble
and i wonder who you see out there
when your eyes stop and stare.

i hear your self deprecating humor
the laugh that hides the face of you
and the pain that quietly murmurs
that travels through you and into
the sky, reflected in its mirror
all the fears that you so feared.

if i could, i would kiss your trembling lips
and soothe those fallen words
until i twist and break and flip
them to mean what you mean to say.

i want to step beside you, calm

the tremor, take your shaking hands in mine

and let you fall apart in my palms

like a landslide coming down.

but i would find you again, 

in the crumbles of you, 

in the avalanche, and begin

to hold onto to you until the earth 

stopped trembling with

your shaking hands.